Program & Schedule Available

Keynote/Plenary Speakers

Lewis Base Activation of Lewis Acids: An Evolving Paradigm for
Catalysis in Main Group Chemistry

11:00am – Wednesday 27 May 2015

University of Illinois

Professor Denmark is primarily interested in the invention
of new synthetic reactions and elucidating the origins of
stereocontrol in novel, asymmetric reactions. The current
emphasis in his laboratories focuses on the relationship
between structure, reactivity and stereoselectivity in a
variety of organoelement processes.

Ionic liquids (ILs) are organic salts that have sufficiently
low melting points that, in their pure state, they are
liquid around room temperature. We will discuss how ILs can
be designed for a variety of important energy-related
applications. We will show ILs for gas separations,
including removal of CO2 from post-combustion
flue gas, pre-combustion gases, and natural gas.

We will also discuss the use of ILs for two different types
of refrigeration systems: IL/water absorption refrigeration
and CO2/IL co-fluid vapor compression
refrigeration. Both of these offer environmental advantages
over conventional technology while improving coefficients of
performance. Next, we will show how the structure of the
anion and cation can improve the "ionicity" of ILs, which is
important in the use of ILs as electrolytes for lithium-ion
batteries, dye sensitized solar cells and supercapacitors.

The current challenges faced by the pharmaceutical industry
have been well-documented and extensively debated. Indeed,
pharmaceutical drug discovery is a complicated
endeavor. Fortunately, new discovery approaches are emerging
to address these challenges. An overview of these drug
discovery approaches along with specific case studies will
be presented.